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And then it follows you into softness. Into hands that don’t hurt you. Into moments where nothing is wrong and your body still behaves like something is about to be.

Because even gentleness can feel unfamiliar when you were never given it cleanly.

Damien stopped trying to contact me after I avoided him all week long.

He probably got tired of trying to understand me. And I don’t blame him. I don’t want him to see me, to know my story and finally admit that nothing is worth it.

I want to keep the memory of him softly soothing my pain without ruining it with what would happen next. Because I know something wrong will happen, it always does.

Days have passed since that night, and without ever sitting down to make a conscious decision to avoid him, my life has gradually revolved around that idea.

I started by skipping a few training sessions under the pretext that my injury was still causing me pain, then I asked the nurse to excuse me entirely for a few days.

She had stared at my stomach a little too long when I explained that my cat had scratched me. Her gaze lingered on the marks as if she were trying to reconcile my explanation with what she was actually seeing, but in the end she said nothing, and I left her office with the strange relief of someone who has just been believed when they would almost have preferred to be exposed.

I call Milo and Edna every night, smiling like I hadn’t been cut open not so far from where they were waiting for me.

I play with Blue and cuddle him, hoping he won’t feel my pain.

Classes followed the same pattern.

I started arriving late, leaving too quickly, and walking around certain buildings without even realizing it. Ethan and Hayzel think I’ve been spending more time with my little brother these past few days. It became the official lie, the one I repeat with enough naturalness that it no longer raises any questions.

The truth is way less reasonable.

I’m changing my habits, my schedule, and my routes to avoid a single man, and every time I catch myself recognizing him, I feel like I’ve become someone else.

I opened his texts several times, often late at night when I needed to stop thinking.

I would read them, then lock my phone almost immediately, like these few extra seconds might turn those words into a conversation, and that conversation into something I wasn’t ready to face.

The most ridiculous thing about all this is that I know exactly why I’m acting this way.

It’s not his reaction that scares me. If I’d seen judgment in his eyes that night, I probably would have already found a way to live with it.

Judgment is simple. I’ve known it my whole life.

What’s been haunting me for the past week is the tenderness in his eyes when he looked at parts of me that I spent my entire life hiding.

The morning I finally decide to go back, I tell myself over and over that the academy is huge, that the odds of running into him are impossible, that he has his own classes, his own responsibilities, his own life.

But when I walk down the hallways, I understand what terrifies me the most. I’m scared of finding pity there, or questions, or finding nothing at all.

I’d just sent a message to Hayzel to let her know I was on my way to Mrs Green’s class when I turned the corner of a hallway and a hand closed around my arm.

My heart recognized it even before I looked up.

For one absurd second, all I notice is the familiarity of that touch. That same hand held mine when they were trembling. It tended to wounds no one was supposed to see or inflict. It brushed against scars I already can’t even accept to have, so being aware that he knows about them sometimes feels sickening.

I’m pulled inside the classroom and the door closes the moment I realize I’ll have to stop pushing him away and have a conversation with him.

Damien's there, motionless in this space he occupies effortlessly. He looks at me for a long time before saying anything.

Our eyes meet, no pity and no judgement is in his.

“You avoided me,” he says softly.

I should reply immediately, but I can't find the speed to lie properly, so I lower my eyes as I reply, “I didn't avoid you.”